Another Reason to Watch Rondo: Can Jameer Nelson Defend PGs?

One of the major themes of this season has been the notion that the Orlando Magic struggle to contain opposing point guards. Ben Q. Rock of the outstanding Magic blog Orlando Pinstriped Post (formerly Third Quarter Collapse) investigates this trend and finds two things (which should be accepted with all the caveats Mr. Rock lists in his post):

1) Opposing point guards who can create their own shot have played better against Orlando than distributor types, and high-scoring games from opposing PGs have contributed to several of Orlando’s nine losses.

2) Opposing point guards have scored significantly more points (18.1 per game versus 13.6) in games started by Jameer Nelson versus games started by Jason Williams. They have also shot a higher percentage from the field in games Nelson has started.

If you’re interested, you should really go read the whole post. Lots of good stuff there.

This is a troubling pattern for the Magic, though it’s really too early to classify it as a pattern set in stone. Let’s wait for Nelson to get back to full health and Orlando to get into its mid/late-season schedule.

But let’s also watch and hope that Rondo continues to build an independent offensive game.